Seventh Day Adventism--The White Lie!

Since I blog about the Watch Tower Bible and Track Society, I have unexpectedly received several emails from Seventh Day Adventists and they always ask about the Sabbath Day—how important it is to observe Saturday as the day of worship and why do I worship on Sunday not Saturday?

My response:

This is my understanding of the Sabbath. On the seventh day, after creation, God rested and God blessed that day. Why? As a day that would always be a memorial to the fact that God had created the universe in six days, and so the seventh day was always going to be a reminder of God as our Creator. It was instituted under the Mosaic Law. After creation, centuries had gone by, and none of the patriarchs had any kind of Sabbath laws.

In addition, when the Mosaic Law came along, God ordained a Sabbath day for the people to observe and to obey God and God put some restraints on them to remind them of their sinfulness. So every Saturday that comes along has a dual role. It causes us to remember God as Creator and to remember how sinful we really are.

But the Sabbath is gone. Colossians 2:16, 17. “Don't let anybody hold you to a Sabbath day.” It is part of Judaism that has been replaced by the New Covenant. And the New Covenant has a completely different day.

Saturday reminds us of God as Creator and God as Law-giver and it reminds us of the beauty of God's creation, the magnificence of His creation and the sinfulness of our own hearts.

But when you come to the New Covenant, you have a new kind of observation, not observing God as Creator, not observing God as Law-giver, but in the New Covenant God is defining Himself as Savior. So the New Covenant has its own day, a day in which we focus on God as our Savior.

How did this happen? Matthew 28:1+, “As it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave and behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning, His clothing as white as snow, the guards shook for fear of Him, became like dead men. The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid for I know that you're looking for Jesus whose been crucified. He's not here for He has risen, just as He said. Come see the place where He was lying. Go quickly, tell His disciples He is risen from the dead and behold, He's going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him, behold I have told you.' Then they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them and they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. And Jesus said to them, ‘Don't be afraid, go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee and there they will see Me.'”

Verse 7, “Go quickly and tell His disciples He has risen from the dead.”

If you memorialize the creation on the seventh day, you certainly want to memorialize the resurrection. If you celebrate God as Creator and God as Law-giver, you certainly want to celebrate Him regularly and even more joyfully as Savior.

In addition, the first Sunday worship service occurs in verse 9. “They came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.” Small service, but a service of worship.

I believe that Saturday or Sunday worship would be covered by Romans 14:5, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

If you want to worship on Saturday—Romans 14:5. If you want to worship on Sunday—Romans 14:5.

The Seventh Day Adventists take Sunday worship to an extreme which I can not find in the Bible but it is found in the writings of Ellen White:

"Here we find the mark of the beast. The very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, . . . without any authority from the Bible." (Ellen G. White, The Mark of the Beast, page 23)

"The keeping of the counterfeit Sabbath is the reception of the mark." (Ellen G. White, Great Controversy, Vol. 4, page 281.)

I would point at Hebrews 1:1-2….God spoke to Moses (vs 2) BUT in these last days He spoke thru Christ. The ‘BUT’ is contrasting showing Christ’s superiority, the major point of chapter one of Hebrews.

From there I would say that doesn’t mean the Old Testament is worthless, Galatians says it’s a tutor, 1 Corinthians says it's written for our instruction that we may learn from our forefathers. Lastly Christ said He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (or fill it up)……He explained that the Decalogue is not merely meeting the external rules but that your heart must be in alignment with these commands thru humble submission to Christ as Lord.

Side note: commands, and commandments isn’t only referring to the Decalogue but all of God's Word, the Decalogue is no more or less important than any of the rest of Scripture for it was and is all God breathed and from the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:19-21).

Hebrews 4 clearly shows and fills up the understanding by showing the Sabbath Rest is something to be obtained in the future, which is Salvation, and the disobedience that the writer of Hebrews is talking about is not neglecting the Sabbath, but being disobedient in general.

Lastly…in Colossians Paul says don’t let anyone give you problems over Sabbaths (which by the way, there is more than one Sabbath, yet the Seventh Day Adventists always only focus on one Sabbath instead of the countless others that God told the Israelites to uphold) and in Romans 13 Paul says not to look down on others for seeing one day or another as being more important than the next. Paul again reiterates the importance of what is in the heart and not external actions (although external actions should align with what is in the heart, and they expose the heart, that does not mean though that everyone who externally observes Saturday is somehow more righteous).